Trompement
by Rhinemaiden Number 4
Summary: Trompement: The action of hitting an opponent at the end of a feint, after a successful deception. Kairi struggles with learning how to properly wield a keyblade. Riku helps. Shenanigans ensue. Set PostKH2, RikuKairi.


**Trompement**

The first time they did this, Kairi ended up flat on her back in under three minutes, panting hard in the thick summer air, with Riku a formidable physical presence above her. "Do you yield?" he almost-but-not-quite purred, although she was pleased to hear the thin edge of exertion underlying his words and a light flush on his pale cheeks.

"For now," she conceded a little breathlessly as Riku helped her to her feet, dismissing his keyblade from where it had been held at the ready. _Her_ keyblade had been knocked aside long before with a complicated little circular motion that he had used to great effect. "Where did you learn how to do that?" Kairi asked. What she didn't say was how different Riku's style of fighting was from Sora's: instead of flailing around and using his enhanced jumping ability to stay in the air for what seemed like minutes at a time, Riku concentrated on how best to disarm his opponent as well as how quickly he could end the fight.

"On Hook's ship, there was always a lot of time to spare, so Hook decided to try and teach me fencing. After three days I beat him, but he never was really good – he was too dramatic to actually defeat anyone. Hook would usually wait until his enemy was completely at his mercy and then start monologuing, leaving himself open for more attacks or giant crocodiles," he grinned, though noticeably without that tinge of arrogance that had been so common before, well, _everything_. "That didn't really win him a lot of fights. But his technique was flawless."

This wasn't helping her soothe the sting of a complete defeat. "So, I'll just have to keep losing until I get better at it?" she pouted slightly.

"No, you're lucky; you're a natural at this – it's obvious that you already know the basic moves used in wielding a keyblade just from your grip. You're already a lot better than Sora was when he first got the Kingdom Key," he said, remembering something that Kairi could recall only as an echo of an echo from inside Sora's heart. "All you'll have to do is remember all of the different techniques, and then use your head to decide which ones of those will defeat me. I bet you'll beat me at it before long. Want to try again?" Riku asked, summoning his keyblade to hang idly.

"Sure!" Kairi said. Considering what Riku thought, it couldn't be that hard, right?

-

Two weeks and untold bouts later, Kairi seriously doubted this certainty as Riku knocked aside her keyblade for the third time in the last hour, sending it spinning away from her hand to rest on the beach. "That was a close match," Riku said, as she looked at him disbelievingly through tousled hair. "I mean it. You almost broke my defense completely when you caught my keyblade with your hilt." Unappeased, she glared at her keyblade where it rested on the ground a few feet away. As if contrite, it shimmered back into her hand as its now-familiar warmth relieved the now-familiar ache in her 'blade-arm.

"Riku, you beat me in two minutes. I didn't get even one hit in! I must be missing something," she continued as Riku averted his eyes guiltily, and then sighed heavily.

"Technically, there's nothing wrong with your style – it's just a little too much like mine," he confessed. "Maybe you should have asked Sora to teach you? He's probably a lot better at showing others than I am."

"Maybe, but I want to learn from _you_," Kairi insisted, gripping the keyblade. "Besides, Sora's studying math with Tidus right now – you know how far behind he is in all of his classes. He'd just end up teaching me how to hit things and forget all about polynomials."

"That's true," Riku allowed, but then sobered. "The reason I keep beating you is that I already know all of these moves. What you'll need to do is make them into something I haven't seen before and then surprise me. Maybe we need to take a break – it's really hot today." This was true: the sea-breeze was unusually weak, making the late-afternoon heat an almost physical presence. However, Kairi wanted to improve, come sunstroke or high-tide.

"Hmm…" she considered. Something that would surprise and distract him, and then give her the advantage… Suddenly, in her hand, her keyblade strummed faintly as a plucked string, full of tension and promise, and Kairi felt the quiet murmur of Naminé in the back of her mind - _He expects almost anything. You'll have to think of something he's never had to parry before. _And that was the answer. "Riku, let's try one more time, then we can see how Sora's doing with the equations."

Riku nodded, long-suffering as he had been since he returned to the island. "One more time," he agreed, and fell easily to a loose crouch, the Way to Dawn held in a firm grip. Kairi loosened her shoulders and lowered her body, but before she could mirror the stance completely that same vibration from her keyblade stopped her. Instead of falling into that same precise stance, she relaxed her posture to counter Riku's, leaving her free arm able to swing at her side with ease. He raised an eyebrow at this change, but said nothing as he lunged.

The first time Riku had fought her, Kairi had gone for the "avoidance" strategy; that is, avoid the keyblade and try to find an opening. After she had lost, she realized that Riku simply didn't make any openings: you either distracted him from defense or you broke through it. She had tried a different approach the fifth time, one she liked to call the "try and knock him down" strategy. This was mainly a completely offensive tactic – her reasoning was that she would break through his defense and finally land a hit. After Riku had easily found a break in _her_ defense, she had realized that this, too, wasn't going to work. It was with both of these in mind that she created the "wait for it and parry" strategy, where she simply waited until Riku, with his natural urge to end fights quickly, began to lose patience and devote more time to offense than defense.

This strategy was well in place as Kairi knocked his blade aside from a forward lunge, then closed her stance to prevent another attack as Riku lunged again. All that she had to do was avoid the blows – a fact that Riku realized by the third thrust she parried. This was clear by his sudden change in attacking style: he began to care less about finesse and more about force, apparently reasoning that while Kairi could knock away strikes, she couldn't keep a defense against brute strength. Kairi anticipated this, and as Riku struggled to break her guard she suddenly twisted her keyblade against his, trapping both of their keyblades in the space between their bodies. Stage two complete, Kairi thought with a hint of satisfaction, and leaned across their tangled keyblades to kiss him.

The reaction was instantaneous: Riku froze against her mouth, all efforts at freeing his keyblade forgotten. The fact that he didn't pull away encouraged her, so she leaned in a bit more and moved, placing her free hand against the flushed skin of his neck. This seemed to be all the encouragement Riku needed – he abandoned his two-armed pursuit of keyblade freedom to place a hand, sweltering hot, against her cheek as he deepened the kiss. Riku kissed like he fought, Kairi thought distractedly, like he was focused on finding weak spots and then taking advantage of them until his opponent gave up. It was difficult to focus on the plan, especially whenever Riku did _that_ with his tongue, but she managed to tighten her failing grip on her keyblade as she stepped back suddenly and twisted the hilt clockwise, sending the Way to Dawn out of his hands and into a nearby bush.

"Do you yield?" Kairi asked, smiling. To this, Riku seemed to have nothing to say other than gaping at her with his free hand still raised. His cheeks were more flushed than usual and his lips were tellingly pink – overall, she decided, a very good look on him. Kairi didn't have long to wait as he considered between indignation and amusement as an appropriate response.

He settled on amusement. "I yield," Riku said smoothly and dropped his hand, summoning his keyblade from the bush without a thought before dismissing it to his heart. "Kairi, I'm very proud of you. I don't think Sora's ever beaten me so thoroughly before," he smiled, slowly.

"He'd better not have," Kairi said happily, and then dismissed her keyblade as well before walking up to him. "After all, you know what they say."

"What do they say?" Riku asked, reaching down to push a stray strand of hair out of her eyes.

"To the victor go the spoils," she said, and leaned up to kiss him.

_the end_


End file.
